Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) 2

¹ I thought to myself, ‘Very well, I will try pleasure and see what enjoyment has to offer’. And there it was: vanity again!

² This laughter, I reflected, is a madness, this pleasure no use at all.

³ I resolved to have my body cheered with wine, my heart still devoted to wisdom; I resolved to embrace folly to see what made mankind happy, and what men do under heaven in the few days they have to live.

⁴ I did great things: built myself palaces, planted vineyards;

⁵ made myself gardens and orchards, planting every kind of fruit tree in them.

⁶ I had pools made for watering the plantations;

⁷ bought men slaves, women slaves; had home-born slaves as well; herds and flocks I had too, more than anyone in Jerusalem before me.

⁸ I amassed silver and gold, the treasures of kings and provinces; acquired singing men and singing women and every human luxury, chest on chest of it.

⁹ So I grew great, greater than anyone in Jerusalem before me; nor did my wisdom leave me.

¹⁰ I denied my eyes nothing they desired, refused my heart no pleasure, a heart that found all my hard work a pleasure; such was the return I got for all my efforts.

¹¹ I then reflected on all that my hands had achieved and on all the effort I had put into its achieving. What vanity it all is, and chasing of the wind! There is nothing to be gained under the sun.

¹² My reflections then turned to wisdom, stupidity, folly. For instance, what can the successor of a king do? What has been done already.

¹³ More is to be had from wisdom than from folly, as from light than from darkness; this, of course, I see:

¹⁴ The wise man sees ahead, the fool walks in the dark. No doubt! But I know, too, that one fate awaits them both.

¹⁵ ‘The fool’s fate’ is I thought to myself ‘will be my fate too. Of what use my wisdom, then? ‘This, too,’ I thought ‘is vanity.’

¹⁶ Since there is no lasting memory for wise man or for fool, and in the days to come both will be forgotten; wise man, alas, no less than fool must die.

¹⁷ Life I have come to hate, for what is done under the sun disgusts me, since all is vanity and, chasing of the wind.

¹⁸ All I have toiled for and now bequeath to my successor I have come to hate;

¹⁹ who knows whether he, will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will be master of all the work into which I have put my efforts and wisdom under the sun. That, too, is vanity.

²⁰ And hence I have come to despair of all the efforts I have expended under the sun.

²¹ For so it is that a man who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This, too, is vanity and great injustice;

²² for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun?

²³ What of all his laborious days, his cares of office, his restless nights? This, too, is vanity.

²⁴ There is no happiness for man but to eat and drink and to be content with his work. This, too, I see as something from God’s hand,

²⁵ since plenty and penury both come from God;

²⁶ wisdom, knowledge, joy, he gives to the man who pleases him; on the sinner lays the task of gathering and storing up for another who is pleasing to God. This, too, is vanity and chasing of the wind.